Fairphone 4 GPS tracking has regressed

Help Fairphone 4
1

I’ve been noticing a lot of issues with GPS on my FP4 recently.

It’s particularly noticable when tracking an activity like cycling, that whole stretches of the (not particularly shaded) route are missing, or have the location jumping around wildly.

In the Google Maps app I noticed at one point that the device seemed to have the correct location for me, but every few seconds it would jump to a location ~100m away, then jump back, and keep doing that. Rebooting the phone “fixed” that issue temporarily.

Is anyone else seeing this problem?

2

Have a look at this topic

Comparing my FP4 with FP5, the FP4 has a lot issues. Often when using GMaps it has my location, I search a route and start navigation and then GPS is lost and it takes minutes to get a fix and after that it works.

3

Thanks! My experience is more that the GPS coverage drops out pretty often, but it may well be related to delayed initial GPS lock.

4

I have a similar problem. I bought a Fairphone in January 2024 and the GPS worked properly till September 2024. Since this month the performance os poorer. The location is lost when entering even in open forests.

7

Reopening this thread

To ask if the fp4 gps problems got fixed ? I’m coonsidering buying one but gps is very important to me.

Thanks

8

I’m still having GPS issues on my FP4, for what that’s worth.

9

Yesterday I met a fellow FP4 owner.

He also complained about the GPS…

10

You’re not alone — some FP4s show GPS jumps or missing stretches. Rebooting helps temporarily. Try clearing Maps’ cache, enabling high-accuracy location, and resetting AGPS data. If it keeps happening, report it to Fairphone support

11

And now? I have exactly the same problems with GPS since about a year. Doesn’t seam to be hardware-related.
I just don’t see any reaction from the FP-folks about any help..
And the mentioning of FP5 and FP6 with fewer problems - meaning we should buy a new one? - can really doesn’t be the answer!!!
Regards, Urs

12

Update: I just updated to A15, hoped, that this help. Negative., exactly the same behaviour.
HW-Problem? Antenna? GPS-Chip? Any spare part which could solve the issue?

13

Same problems here, I’m using google maps and the location just gets stuck when navigating.

14

I’m using GPS on my Fairphone 4 quite extensively since I’m an active OSM contributor. Never had any problems so far. I usually get a quick fix and the accuracy is pretty good. I can’t tell anything about Google Maps though since I don’t use it, haven’t done the update to A15 yet either.

15

Just to confirm that this is not a universal issue: I have updated to Android 15 and occasionally use OsmAnd to record GPS tracks (fellow OSM contributor here), and have never experienced any problems in this area.

16

I don’t have the reference at hand, but I remember that earlier some people figured that the problem might actually be wrongly sitted GPS antenna. I’m not sure where it is, but IIRC it was somewhere on the rear of the phone, where, if pressure was applied, the antenna got seated correctly and started working as it should.

17

Also, try without any case on the phone. Some cases might block or refract signals.

18

I, too, have no problems with GPS. But I regularly update the A-GPS information manually. Maybe that can help to improve the GPS accuracy. Or you just wait until the A-GPS data are updated anyway.

19

I also have no problems wirh GPS since I agreed to use location services (Settings - Location - Location Services) with the options selected as in the Screenshot ( sorry, only German)

Screenshot_20251113-150505~2
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